In the field of sports broadcasting such as coverage of football matches, it is usual for commentators to identify visually players from live video footage of a match or from a vantage point in a stadium so that match statistics may be compiled about each player. Additionally, for highlights programs, information about a position of each player on a field of play and their actions on the field of play may be compiled by an operator from the recording of the live video footage using a suitable review and editing suite. However, reviewing and editing the recorded video footage is time consuming and expensive as well as being subject to human error. Additionally, it is difficult for a human operator to track and identify visually a large number of players at once. Accordingly, automated systems can be used to assist the human operator to track each player using image recognition techniques carried out on the video footage of the match. The data generated by the automated system can then be used to enhance a viewing experience for a viewer. For example, a greater number of match statistics about each player can be made available to augment a viewing experience for the viewer or operator. Additionally, with an automated system, costs and labour involved in marking up the video footage to generate the match statistics can be reduced.
However, with automated player tracking systems, it becomes increasingly difficult to track each player, particularly if one player obscures the view of all or part of another player (a so-called occlusion event) or if players collide with each other. This can become a problem when the players involved in an occlusion event are on the same team, because there will be little to distinguish them from each other since they wear the same team clothing.
Furthermore, it is desirable to use a single camera to capture the video footage of the match so as to enable virtual zooming and panning without physically moving the camera. However, in this case, occlusion events become even more of a problem as additional cameras are not present to provide a different view of the occlusion event thus helping to resolve the ambiguity as to which player is which.